


It's a thing that happens to you

by Teatrolley



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Working things out, a resolution to all of the problems that the show is setting up to be solved, can they, these two dudes have to figure out how love works, this is basically meta in fic form honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:32:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So there are two confessions and a kiss, and there’s the getting together resolved. But then there’s the being together, and the mornings after. How does one, really, have a relationship? One thing is certain: they’re about to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams:
> 
>  
> 
> _“Real isn’t how you are made._  
>  It’s a thing that happens to you.  
> When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I really hope you haven’t been in contact with anything toxic,” John says, as he pulls back. His eyes dart towards the microscope, and Sherlock understands what he means.  
> “Would I touch you if I had?” he asks.  
> John chuckles; that one of his that is most like a single exhale of breath. Sherlock has catalogued this, back when he thought it was a novelty he’d soon lose.  
> “You’re not touching me yet."

Sherlock, by now, thinks he knows a lot about love and being in it. He knows what it’s like to believe that it is unrequited and, in a turn of events he could have never hoped to imagine, he might get to know what it’s like when it isn’t; when it is returned.

What he doesn’t know much about, however, is how to have a successful relationship. And, well – despite his many endeavours, John doesn’t really know either. 

Hopefully this will prove to be more of a benefit than a challenge.

__

It’s three am, and the moonlight shines in through the kitchen window, softly illuminating the microscope sitting on the table in front of him. His hands are wrapped around the base of it, as he, through it, looks at the preparation he’s spent the last ten minutes making. Pulling back a bit, he jots his notes down on the paper next to him. The work is methodical and calming.

He’s alone, but only in the literal sense of the word, now; he is the only being in this room, at the present moment. He might no longer be alone in the grander sense, the one meaning cold sheets for the rest of his life and smiles that could never quite reach his eyes. 

It happened last night. The resolution. The peak of the story, the climax, the third act and the culmination of all of the set-ups, to use the words of John’s craft. 

Mary is gone now. Dead. Whatever; it’s stopped mattering now, too. 

John however, oh John. Sherlock smiles just thinking of him. Of what happened. He has to stop working and allow the feeling of it to rush over him. 

John, the brilliant, beautiful man, is in his bed. Sherlock’s bed. No, wait – their bed, now.  
He’s sleeping. At least he was when Sherlock left the room. 

In the middle of the night John fell asleep quickly, but it didn’t mean that he stopped holding Sherlock’s hand. He took it with him instead, as he turned around, and Sherlock’s arm engulfed him. 

It was beautiful. It was everything Sherlock had ever dared hope for, realized there, between his own two hands; the evidence of it, of them, so clear. 

It was, almost, too much. Not in a bad way; Sherlock doesn’t want to hit any brakes, or halt any developments. He wants it all, now; no more waiting between them. That doesn’t change the fact that having is so much more real than wanting, and the relief of it was so grand that Sherlock had to gather back his breath. 

So, here he is, in the moonlit kitchen, with John in his bed. It’s silly and it’s strange, but it’s good. Sherlock is, without a doubt, happy. 

He is interrupted then: his phone rings. He didn’t mean to take it with him, but it is in the pocket of his dressing gown, the lit-up screen of it visible through the fabric. 

He fishes it out of the pocket, and sees that it’s John calling him. He answers it.

“We’re in the same flat, you know,” he says. “You don’t have to call me.”

On the other end of the line, there’s the sound of the duvet ruffling, as John must shift. If he removed the phone from his ear, Sherlock might be able to hear it from down the hallway.

“Well, how am I supposed to know?” John asks. “You aren’t in the bed.” 

Luckily, he doesn’t sound upset or affronted. It isn’t the softness of fond words, but it isn’t the harshness, hardness of anger either. It somewhere in-between, in the neutral space. Sherlock presses the phone closer, and listens to the sound of it 

“Experiment,” he says. He thinks it will be explanation enough. 

“Inspired?” John asks. 

“Hm. Yes.” Something like it.

John doesn’t reply, so for a while there’s silence. Well, not silence; Sherlock rests his head in his palm, and holds it up with his elbow on the table, leaning into it, and reserves all of his mental energy for listening to John’s breathing on the other end. It’s such a simple thing, yet it leaves him calm. 

John must have calmed, too. The next time he speaks, his voice is quieter; creating intimacy. 

“Are you all right?” he asks. He asks it like whatever Sherlock says will be fine; inviting honesty. So, Sherlock is honest:

“A bit overwhelmed,” he says. He listens to John’s responding low, long intake of breath, and wonders in what unconsidered ways his words could be understood. 

“Good or bad?” John asks. Oh. 

“Good,” Sherlock hurries to correct. “Good, of course.”

John is silent for a while, again. He’s probably thinking, so Sherlock doesn’t interrupt him to demand a response. He touches the smooth surface on the microscope instead, focusing his attention on that, and the pattern of the light hitting it, as he waits for John’s reply. 

“Are you in the kitchen?” John asks then. Calm still, but with an intention, now. 

“Yes.”

“Can I come out?” 

Sherlock wishes John knew that he doesn’t have to ask. They’ll get there, probably. 

“Yes,” Sherlock says. John, however, continues:

“I want to– I just want to kiss you,” he says. Sherlock is almost taken aback by how instant his own reacting smile to the words are, but then again he is in love; perhaps it isn’t so strange after all. “Is that okay?”

Sherlock chuckles, although it is more a huff of breath through his nose than anything. He’s been so caught up in his own emotions about their development, that he’s hardly considered John’s; he must, for lack of a better phrase, be shitting his pants, too.

“Yes,” he says; makes his voice firm and clear, so John knows how much he means it. “That’s okay.”

John doesn’t reply, but Sherlock hears shuffling for a while, before he hears the bedroom door down the hallway opening. He hangs up the phone, and puts his chin back in his palm, as he listens to the sound of John’s footsteps arriving before he does.

When John arrives he is biting his bottom lip, but it does a poor job of hiding his grin. His hair is messy on top of his head, and he looks mussed up and sleepy, but also somehow milder than usual. Maybe it’s just that he’s back here, at night, and stripped off his daytime clothes – although, Sherlock notes, he’s still wearing a lot more than he slept in; boxers, sweats and a scruffy tee. It’s probably for Sherlock’s benefit. 

Sherlock smiles, too, as he straightens and turns in his seat when John comes closer, so John can step in-between his parted thighs and stand close enough for his warmth to be felt. Sherlock turns his face upwards towards him, and keeps their eyes locked.

John doesn’t touch him, but Sherlock thinks he probably will in a bit, when Sherlock has told him that he can. Instead John leans against the table, supporting himself by his hip.

“Are you comfortable?” he asks. “With everything that has happened?” 

Sherlock could see how he’d draw that sort of conclusion from all of the facts; his own inexperience – that is, before last night – and his being gone upon John’s awakening. It hadn’t been full on sex, but it had been frantic, hands and spit, and it had been punctuated by John’s constant repetition of “Is this okay?”

It was; every single bit of it. More than, really.

“Yeah, I’m comfortable,” Sherlock says. John inhales, as if in relief. “Will you stop worrying about me?”

John smiles, then. He straightens, and as his hands come up to cup Sherlock’s cheeks, his fingers become splayed across Sherlock’s cheekbones.

“No,” he says. Sherlock smiles under his hands anyway. He allows his eyes to close for a second or two, so he can just take it in. 

“You can tell me if you’re ever not, you know,” John says. His right hand comes up to push Sherlock’s hair out of his face. “And you can wake me.”

His hands move into Sherlock’s hair then, and scratches his scalp a little. John has always touched him, but never like this; never as unabashed and free. It’s uncomplicated and, at least for now, without motive. Sherlock feels shaky with it.

He ponders the possibility that John has wanted to do this for a while; maybe ever since those first months. He himself sure has. 

“I know,” he says. “Honestly, I’m fine. I just needed to clear my head for a bit.” 

“Hm,” John says. He seems to accept Sherlock’s words and let it go. He leans in so their faces are close, and his nose can run over Sherlock’s temple. His voice is low and dragged-out when he concedes: “All right then.”

To be touched like this, Sherlock thinks, is astonishing. Still, he wants more. He wants everything. 

“I know how we can clear your head,” John then says, and in a stunning turn of events, Sherlock just might get. It's a suggestion and a pickup line. It’s John wanting to kiss him, touch him, be close to him.

“You don’t have to ask,” Sherlock says. 

John grins, with his lips first, before it moves to his eyes, glinting and gentle. His hands come back to Sherlock’s cheeks. When he moves in to press his lips to Sherlock’s, it’s firm but simple; not heated, but the kind of kiss that is born from the need to reassure and the mere desire for a comforting touch. Sherlock closes his eyes on it, once more.

“I really hope you haven’t been in contact with anything toxic,” John says, as he pulls back. His eyes dart towards the microscope, and Sherlock understands what he means.

“Would I touch you if I had?” he asks. 

John chuckles; that one of his that is most like a single exhale of breath. Sherlock has catalogued this, back when he thought it was a novelty he’d soon lose. 

“You’re not touching me yet,” John says. Teasing, now. It makes Sherlock’s muscles relax, as if on cue, and John steps just a little closer. 

From this position Sherlock can easily put his hands up to the back of John’s thighs, and not anywhere else really, so that is what he does; splays his fingers and presses his palm firmly against the patch of skin right between John’s knee and his arse. 

He raises his brow at John. It’s a challenge, and John smirks with the left side of his mouth before he takes it, and catches Sherlock’s lips between his own once more.

It’s different this time; it’s deeper, and now John presses himself closer and fists his hands in Sherlock’s hair, hard enough to be just shy of aching. He works on Sherlock’s mouth with an intensity and dedication strong enough to make Sherlock feel a bit dizzy. 

His own hands move first to John’s hips, then to his jaw. He doesn’t try to take back the control – he likes it like this – he just holds. John’s grip in Sherlock’s hair becomes more deliberate as he guides Sherlock’s face close, and keeps kissing him in a way that makes the hotness of desire flash through Sherlock’s veins.

Sherlock sighs into it, and it’s like that’s all John needs, because then he groans, too, and tugs upwards at Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock doesn’t need the hint; he’s already getting up from the chair. 

They’re so close he almost can’t stand, but then John, blindly, pushes the chair away with his foot and turns them both, pushing Sherlock into the table, so the equipment on it rattles. 

Sherlock is forced to remove one hand from John’s face and put it on the table instead, to keep himself from being pushed over. He’s unsteady on his feet, and that, coupled with the movement of his hand, breaks their kiss. 

It doesn’t seem to matter, though. John’s nose pushes into his temple as he regains his footing, and he chuckles lightly and heartily.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

Sherlock notices his own frantic heartbeat and heavy breathing, but only in the back of his mind. He’s infinitely more occupied with the way John’s hands come down to his sides, his thumbs parallel to Sherlock’s navel, as he caresses Sherlock’s skin through the silky fabric of the dressing gown. 

He puts his own arms around John’s neck as John looks back up, and their eyes lock. John’s eyes are hooded now, and his breathing is frantic too. His cheeks are flushed, and judging by the heat in them, Sherlock’s own probably are too. He likes this, Sherlock; _desperately_ likes it. He’s hard and aching already.

“Are you wearing anything other than this?” John asks. He tugs at the lapel of the dressing gown next to Sherlock’s collarbone, signalling what he means. His voice is guttural and hoarse. Sherlock momentarily forgets that you’re supposed to answer questions.

When he remembers, he shakes his head. 

“How much damn clothes are you wearing, though?” he says, mostly to prove to himself that he still can. For a moment John looks dazzled, as if not being caught up. When he does catch up, he laughs. 

“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he says. 

“Silly,” Sherlock says. Really, it is desperately kind, but it is also rather unrequired. 

“Stupid, even?” John asks; amused. Sherlock kisses him this time, and John smiles into it, as Sherlock walks them across the kitchen and up against the counter. 

“Idiotic, in fact,” Sherlock mumbles back, in-between kisses. It’s funny because, in actual fact, John is the exact opposite, and they both know it now. 

“Don’t push it,” John says. He’s grinning, though, when Sherlock moves back to watch him. His hands have sneaked under Sherlock’s dressing gown, and are cupping his collarbones now. His thumbs run over them. 

“Hm,” Sherlock says; hears himself how he’s smiling. “Or what?”

John rolls his eyes but chuckles. He’s grinning; he looks so happy that Sherlock feels breathless. He’s the cause of this, right now. He can bring this to John, make John feel things like this, instead of things like pain. It’s more than what he ever hoped.

“You’re inside your brain again,” John says, and interrupts his thoughts. His thumb comes up to press to Sherlock’s forehead, between his eyebrows. Sherlock returns his attention to him, and them, and what they are doing. 

“Take me out of it, then,” he says. 

John smiles and kisses him again. Sherlock lets him and, later, when John pushes them towards the bedroom and opens the knot on Sherlock’s dressing gown, letting it fall to the floor, he lets him do that, too. 

John touches him then, touches him and touches him, until everything left on Sherlock’s mind is John’s hands and John’s lips and John’s cock and John and John and John. 

That’s all he really needs, he thinks.

__

So maybe Sherlock was wrong in assuming that all their love could ever be was messy, a liability, a _default found in the loosing side_. So, maybe he’s actually stronger, now. They both are; together.

This doesn’t mean that Sherlock is spared from the feeling of being desperately, pressingly vulnerable and naked the first time they take a case and Sherlock knows that not a single person who has ever and will ever be working with him from Scotland Yard is unaware. 

The bed has held them for over two weeks, but finally they’ve both begun to feel like the cases are pulling at them, too. 

In fact, it is John who wakes Sherlock up from an afternoon nap – really, what is happening to him? – and says,

“So are you getting tired of me yet?”

Sherlock is groggy and, for a brief moment, unable to make sense of John’s words. He doesn’t have time to consider the potential implications of them, because the intended meaning is revealed by Sherlock’s own phone being shown to him and John’s excited grin. 

Sherlock squints to read the words, letting his eyes adjust to the light, and sees that it’s a text from Lestrade. Triple murders, all within a day, the newest body just found. It is, for lack of a better expression, just up Sherlock’s ally. Well, theirs. 

“How long ago was it received?” Sherlock asks. He’s already getting out of bed. John grins, and looks almost more delighted than Sherlock. He snatches his outstretched hand with the phone back to himself, and looks at it. 

“Half an hour,” he says. 

Sherlock absentmindedly snatches a pair of clean pants from the floor, before he moves towards the bathroom door. He can’t go anywhere without showering. His body is covered in stale sweat and sex, his hair mussed with it. John’s is, too.

“I’ll join you,” John says, when he must understand what Sherlock is doing. 

“We don’t have time.” He means for sex; it’s true, too. 

John, however, chuckles but shakes his head as he walks past Sherlock into the bathroom. He must have been up while Sherlock slept, because he’s clothed in a tee and pants. He pulls the former off as Sherlock turns on the water, regardless.

John’s voice is muffled by the fabric of his shirt when he speaks: “Just for showering, you nit. I can actually keep my hands off you.”

This turns out to, at least for now, be untrue. 

As Sherlock has wet his curls, and is washing his hair with his eyes closed, John’s hands come up to rest against his stomach. Sherlock’s abdomen does a jump with it, but as soon as he expects the touch, his body gives in to it easily. 

As John’s lips press against the underside of his jaw, Sherlock smiles with his eyes still closed; mostly for being wanted like this: constantly and without hesitation. 

“You’re sexy like this,” John says in explanation. He walks into Sherlock, so Sherlock is forced to take a step back and leave the spray of water. The tiles beneath him, he vaguely notices, are slippery.

“I’m going to fall,” he says. John kisses his neck then, instead, right over his pulse point; it’s already elevated the tiniest bit, but John will notice no matter how small the change is. Sherlock opens his eyes.

“Sit down, then,” John says, muffled against Sherlock’s skin. 

“Are you suggesting I blow you?”

John doesn’t reply. Instead he walks into Sherlock again, forcing him to move and backing him up against the wall behind them. His right hand is on said wall, his arm next to Sherlock’s head. His other is flatly pressed to the side of Sherlock’s neck. 

Sherlock notes this, like he notes everything, in the back of his mind, but is mostly aware of John’s lips, moving in to kiss him. 

Contrary to whatever verbal dismissal he might make, he doesn’t mind this in the least. In fact, he has come to realize, he loves being touched; both when it is sexual, and when it is not; when it is in seduction or when it is in comfort. As long as it’s John’s hands doing the touches, it’s all fine.

John’s thumb on his neck moves, so it is covering his pulse-point perfectly. It hasn’t passed Sherlock’s notice – of course it hasn’t – how often John does something like this; seeks evidence for the way he’s affecting Sherlock. It could be a kink, but Sherlock is fairly certain it’s actually about reassurance. You're alive, it says. Look at you breathing. Their bags are heavy with things like these. Sherlock doesn't know what to do about them yet.

The kiss is sensuously slow and deep, but not necessarily intended to lead to anything. Sherlock sighs, still, because he’s content like this. John moves back to smile a bit.

“I’ve got you,” he says then. 

It could mean anything; it could mean that he won’t let Sherlock slip on the tiles, or that he’s got Sherlock in the bringing-about-sexual-satisfaction sense. It could mean that he’s there, beside Sherlock, to help. Probably, Sherlock thinks, it means it all.

“I know,” he says. John’s grin widens.

 

John _has_ got him, it turns out. The fake armour of coldness that used to be the barrier between him and the world is gone now, but he isn’t as without a safety-net of comfort as he might have feared. Affection, it seems, John’s affection, takes care of that. 

They enter the building sectioned off by the police-tape, and then the room with the body. As they do, everyone – Lestrade, Anderson _and_ Donovan – turn to look at him. Them. 

Sherlock halts in his step, and sees by the looks on their faces that they all know; Donovan seems to be readjusting data in her head to match the development. Anderson seems triumphant, like he has had suspicions confirmed. Lestrade looks, well– happy for them.

It’s only three seconds, but Sherlock sees all this instantly, and spends the rest of them feeling off his footing and unsure. 

John makes all of this evaporate; he takes a miniscule step closer, and becomes a warm, safe weight firmly planted by Sherlock’s side. Sherlock leans on this, metaphorically, until they all nod and suddenly things are back to how they used to be. 

He bends down next to the body, studying it. The clarity with which he sees the clues almost takes him aback; he hasn’t felt like this for a long time, if ever, and certainly not without recreational (or not so recreational) drugs to help him. 

Later, when he thinks back to this case, he doesn’t see the deductions, and the facts of the case function mostly as the framework for this realization. John would see stars if he was ever told this. Instead, the case becomes the manifestation of this very realization: That his affection for John, and John’s affection for him, builds him up, and supports him as he climbs, until, after a while, he is able to stand tall and high on his own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can you ever forgive me?” he asks. His voice breaks several times on the words; he has no control right now. It doesn’t matter. These emotions are real, and they deserve to be felt.   
> “You are forgiven,” John says. “You’ve always been.”

One day, Sherlock wakes up in the middle of the night, and is alone. 

He finds John in the living room, sitting on the couch with his legs bent and hidden underneath him. There’s a cup of tea cradled between his hands, but the rest of him is tense and solemn. Around him it is dark; his face illuminated only by the moonlight shining in through the window.

When Sherlock appears in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, John looks up slowly, and their eyes meet. John’s breath, when he exhales it, is shaky. It doesn’t take Sherlock’s deductive prowess to know what’s happened: nightmare.

Feeling less sure of himself than he probably seems, Sherlock walks the four and a half steps up to the couch, and sits on it. Cross-legged, too; mirroring John’s pose. His side turned to the sofa’s back, so they can watch each other. 

John turns to him. Sherlock reaches out for the cup in John’s hands, and takes a sip of the tea when it is handed over. It makes John smile; weak compared to the grin he usually wears now, but still there. 

“Bad, this time?” Sherlock asks. They’ve happened before, he knows. It’s hard not to, when they sleep in the same bed. It’s never been a reaction like this, before. 

“A bit,” John says. 

Sherlock supresses the desire to reach out and touch him. There are dark circles underneath his eyes, and his messy hair makes him look tired, now, instead of sexually rumpled. Sherlock isn’t entirely sure how to comfort him. 

“I’m sorry,” he tries. John, however, shakes his head. He smiles again, melancholy and small, but his hand comes out to rest on Sherlock’s knee. The warmth of it seeps through the flimsy fabric of Sherlock’s trousers; Sherlock treasures it.

“No,” John says. “Not your fault.” Debatable, Sherlock thinks. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. 

John shakes his head. The hand not on Sherlock’s knee comes up to rest on Sherlock’s shoulder, the fingers of it sneaking over the nape of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock is grateful for the constancy of John’s touch; it’s good to know that it’s still there.

“Not really,” John says. “Later.”

“Okay.” 

Sherlock takes another sip of the tea, before he hands the cup back. John drinks some, too. They sit like that for a while, John with his hand on Sherlock’s knee, and Sherlock’s on John’s too, then. It’s silent, but it isn’t uncomfortable. 

Sherlock reaches out to take John’s hand. He holds it between his own, and turns the palm upwards, so he can chase the lines on it. He rubs his thumb over it a little, massaging it. When he looks up, John’s smile has turned fond. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. Sherlock chases a line again.

“I’m reading your palm,” he says. He thinks it’s fairly clear that what he’s actually doing is trying to make John think of something else, to cheer him up, but John snorts in amusement anyway.

“No, you’re not,” he says. Voice louder now, back to normal conversation volume. The energy seems to almost seep back into him, and only then does Sherlock realise how bleak he felt against his skin just before.

“Why not?” he says. 

“You don’t know how to do that. It would be useless.” 

“I don’t know,” Sherlock says. He taps his index finger against the longest line on John’s right palm. Truly he has no idea what it might mean, and truly John is right, but he still says, “This means that your sexual prowess is without comparison, and I think that’s fairly useful to know.”

John’s laughter bellows in the room. Loud and clear, lifting the heaviness back off Sherlock’s chest. It’s his favourite sound. He could bathe in it, he thinks, if such a thing was possible. 

When John’s eyes meet his again, they’re brimming with the thing that Sherlock has now learned to recognise as affection. 

“I am good,” John says. “You’re not missing out.” Sherlock is entirely certain that that is true.

“Are you?” he says; teasing, now. They’ve allowed the changed mood to take over, and John’s hands have moved further up Sherlock’s thighs. 

“Missing out?” John clarifies. “Are you asking me to tell you how sexy I find you?”

“Maybe,” Sherlock says. He bites his lip not to smile. “Problem?”

John kisses him again, sweet and hot and drawn out. His hands are on Sherlock’s jaw, his fingers buried in that dip behind Sherlock’s ears. It’s hard then, desperate, before John pulls back and presses their foreheads together. 

“I love you,” he says. Sherlock knows that they’re back to whatever it was in John’s dream now. This ‘I love you’ is a thanking. He presses his nose into John’s cheek and kisses his chin. 

“Come back to bed,” he says. 

John does. 

Sherlock sits astride his lap and kisses him until his breath turns heavy and his hands crawl up under Sherlock’s shirt. 

They’ve never really been good with words, but when they open Sherlock together, carefully, before Sherlock sinks down on him, when they breathe their moans into each other’s mouths, and when they claw at each other’s backs, Sherlock thinks that might get the point across, too. 

“John,” he whimpers, and John stops kissing him so he doesn’t swallow the name from Sherlock’s lips, and it is instead loud and clear in the room as Sherlock comes from John’s gentle hands on him. 

Sherlock becomes sated after sex. John holds him in his arms afterwards, and pushes the hair out of his face. His smile is firmly planted there now; the sadness almost removed from it for now. 

“Do you ever dream about me?” Sherlock asks. John’s hand is on his forehead, and his body is curled around Sherlock’s on its side. He gnaws at Sherlock’s earlobe.

“Yes,” he says. “All the time.”

“Bad things?” Sherlock can’t see John’s face as he asks; it’s hidden against his own neck.

“And good,” John says. The words tickle against Sherlock’s skin, cool against the wet spot John’s tongue has left behind.

“Good?” He won’t ask about the bad, but he thinks he can imagine; he’s done a lot of bad things. 

“Oh, all sorts of things,” John says. “You couldn’t imagine.” Sherlock thinks he probably could; he’s had a lot of dreams about John, too. He still has them, but their themes have changed, onto things he doesn’t yet have. “Daydreams.”

“Daydreams?”

“That you get the groceries for once, you know.” Sherlock chuckles. John’s smile is pressed into Sherlock’s neck, before it is shown to him as John’s head is lifted and their eyes meet. “That you love me back.”

Ah. A trap. Sherlock rolls his eyes, but the effect is lost with the fondness of his own expression; he can feel it carved into his own features. They are moulded by it now, almost permanently.

“Idiot,” he says. John raises his brows. 

“You have to say it now,” he says. 

It makes it sound like Sherlock has an aversion to saying it. Really, he has quite the opposite. He could say it all the time, four times a minute, and still always mean it. 

“I love you back,” he says. 

John grins; his face in spreads in half with the size of it. He hums then, and presses it into the spot next to Sherlock’s mouth. 

“Hm,” he says. “Lucky me.” 

 

The next time Sherlock wakes and John is gone, he hears the shower running, and knows that the nightmares are at it again. 

He gets up this time, and goes to make two cups of tea in the kitchen. When John comes back out, in his towel, Sherlock hands one of them to him. He settles in against John’s side, the two of them sitting against the headboard of their bed, and allows John to scratch his scalp as he talks about their newest case. 

It’s distraction, and John probably knows it, but it must work. Eventually John’s hand goes still in his hair, and his soft breathing next to Sherlock’s head tells Sherlock that he’s fallen peacefully back to sleep. He doesn’t wake again that night.

__

It’s not just the nightmares. They have other ghosts in their pasts too, other skeletons in their closets. 

The first time Sherlock allows John to touch the scars, John cries into the low of his back. 

It’s four weeks in. Sherlock is lying on his stomach, and the only light in the room is their bedside lamp. The only sound is John’s gasps, as his fingers travel lightly over them. His face presses into Sherlock’s skin, and leaves wetness behind it. 

“Don’t cry so I can’t see it,” Sherlock says. 

John moves up his body to his face, and Sherlock turns around so they can watch each other. Their foreheads press together firmly. Sherlock puts his hands up to John’s cheeks, so he can use his thumbs to dry off the tears. 

“Can you ever forgive me?” he asks. His voice breaks several times on the words; he has no control right now. It doesn’t matter. These emotions are real, and they deserve to be felt. 

“You are forgiven,” John says. “You’ve always been.”

“Oh.” Has he? He can’t imagine that John’s kindness is real. Except, maybe, he can: John has always been kind to him. A grumpy bastard towards almost everyone else, but he seems to be the exception.

“Let me help you,” John says. “Please. Don’t ever–”

“I will,” Sherlock interrupts him. This is what he’s learned: To ask for John’s help. “I will.” 

John kisses his knuckles like he’s grateful. Sherlock is simply grateful for him; for having him, and being his.

__

A week or so later, Sherlock lies awake for a long while after John has fallen asleep, and thinks about the drugs still hidden under his sock-drawer, taped to the bottom of it. 

It wasn’t true, what he told John: they were never really to help his thought process. They never did, either. It is true that his mind repels stagnation, but only because boredom leaves too much room for unpleasant thoughts, and he used to have a lot of those. 

He gets out of the bed. John stirs when he removes his hand from John’s grasp, but quickly falls back asleep. 

They’re easy to find, the drugs; it’s muscle-memory, getting them out from their hiding place. It used to have to be. 

He takes them with him, glancing in John’s direction to see if he’s still sleeping, and goes to the bathroom when he sees that he is. He closes the door gently behind him; careful not to make too much noise.

For a while he stands in the middle of the room, the syringe and drugs in his hands, simply watching them. The bathroom lights illuminate them clearly. If he looks too long, Sherlock thinks, they might start drawing him in.

He opens the lid on the toilet, and throws the drugs down them. He flushes. The syringe he breaks, before throwing it into their trashcan. He takes the bag in his hands then, and takes it downstairs, where he throws it in the dumpster, just for good measure. 

It feels good to be rid of them; it feels liberating. It feels like a step into making healthy decisions, he thinks. He feels himself smiling, as he looks up towards the bedroom window, where he knows John is sleeping, his body waiting for Sherlock’s to curl around. It feels like maybe he’ll be all right, now.

When he crawls back into the bed, John stirs again. This time he doesn’t fall back asleep immediately, but instead snuggles into Sherlock’s body. Sherlock lets him, and intertwines their legs. 

“All right?” John asks. Groggy. Sherlock kisses his forehead.

“Yes,” he says. And means it. “I’m just fine.”

“Good,” John says. He turns around, showing Sherlock his back. Sherlock curls around it, spooning John, and is rewarded with a pleased hum.

“I love you,” he says. Because he wants to. Because it’s true. Because he’s overcome by it, in that moment. He kisses John’s neck, and breathes him in; he smells like amber looks, Sherlock thinks. He inhales again. 

“Love you,” John says. It’s an offhand remark, and that means something too; how it’s become an everyday thing by now.

Sherlock puts his arm around John, and his hand to his stomach. He draws a pattern there, until John takes it and holds it in his own. Closing his eyes, Sherlock lets himself sink into the calmness of the shared night. John’s body against his is all he needs now, to feel comfortable. 

He’s almost completely succumbed to sleep before John speaks again:

“I’m not stupid, you know,” he says. He doesn’t sound upset. In fact, he sounds almost amused. Sherlock supposes he should’ve known really, that John knew. He’s probably known all along. He really is pretty damn smart. 

“I know,” he says. 

“It might not be this easy,” John says. “Recovery isn’t always.” 

“I’m ready for it,” Sherlock says. As he does, he realises the truth of it. 

In actual truth he is very well capable of analysing his own behaviour, and he knows exactly what the drugs were: a part of a pattern of self-destructive behaviour. He’s ready to let that go now.

“I think you are, too,” John says. He grabs Sherlock’s hand, and pulls it to his lips. A kiss is planted on the back of it. 

“I’m proud of you,” John says. Sherlock smiles, and presses it into John’s skin to let him know. “I love you.”

“I know,” Sherlock says. It’s the first time he’s been this certain: John loves him. John might just continue to love him for quite some time. 

Sherlock hopes he does.

 

The next time Mycroft comes by, Sherlock asks him for the book with the list that he knows he has, while John is in the kitchen making some toast. It’s a winter morning, and they have the fire on. Mycroft’s expression, as he hands the book over, is intense.

Sherlock doesn’t open it to look. It doesn’t matter now; it’s in the past. What he does look at is John, oh John, watching him from the kitchen with a small smile. How Sherlock deserved his love, he will never know.

He throws the book into the flames of the fireplace, and watches Mycroft as he does. He doesn’t have to explain; they both understand. 

“Thank you,” Mycroft says. He’s looking at Sherlock, but it might as well be directed at John.

“I’m not doing it for you,” Sherlock says. Mycroft’s eyes land on John’s body, but Sherlock shakes his head; he understands this now, too.

“No,” he says. “Not for him either.” When Mycroft raises his brow for him to explain, he says, “For me.” 

When Mycroft breathes, it’s the closest thing to relief Sherlock has ever seen on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve got to stop doing that.” John’s voice is getting more irritated now.  
> “Saving people?”   
> The kettle boiling starts getting so loud that John has to come closer, for them to be able to hear each other.  
> “Leaving me behind."

There’s a case then, after two months. There’s a case where Sherlock goes off on his own, because John is back at Baker Street and fetching him would take too long, because it’s now or it’s the potential death of several other people. Because Sherlock can’t have any more names, any more stories, any more lives, on his conscience. 

There’s a slash along his right arm, but a case solved. He gets some bandages from a medical man, but hurries off before they can get him to come along for check-ups; all he wants is to get home. 

When he finally, after being rejected by multiple cabs, finds one to drive him home, and arrives at the front door, it’s just past four in the morning. The steps towards the first floor feel long and arduous; exhaustion has worn him thin.

His phone was left in the flat, so Sherlock hasn’t been in contact with John. He knows Lestrade texted him, but he’s unsure of what kind of reaction to expect. Anger? John hates it when he goes off on his own. Always has. Maybe worry, first? 

The thought of conflict makes Sherlock tense up; he’s tired, and all he wants is a cup of tea and some sleep, now.

The light is on in the kitchen. He sees it already on the stairs. It spills out from the open door, and onto the landing in a yellow rectangle. John is awake then, probably. 

Not actually in the kitchen though, and not in the living room either. Sherlock checks the two rooms as he enters, and finds no one. He goes to the kettle, instead of searching further, and puts it on. John will find him. 

John does. Barely ten seconds pass before the door to their bedroom opens down the hallway, and steps make it towards the kitchen. Fast-paced and determined; some sort of temper then. Sherlock keeps his back turned. 

“Where have you been?” John’s voice meets him from across the room. It’s tense in the way it gets when it is a cover for supressed emotions. 

Sherlock resists the urge to sigh or beg him not to be upset, and instead gets two cups down from the cupboard above him. He still doesn’t turn around.

“I solved the case,” he says. He’s tone is one of carefully constructed neutrality. 

“You went off on your own,” John says. He stays across the room. Sherlock only knows because he doesn’t hear John move.

“I saved someone’s life,” Sherlock corrects him. It’s an important distinction. John will agree later, probably. Perhaps not right now, though. He hears John sighing.

“You’ve got to stop doing that.” John’s voice is getting more irritated now.

“Saving people?” He knows what John means, and that it isn’t this. He says it anyway. 

The kettle boiling starts getting so loud that John has to come closer, for them to be able to hear each other.

“Leaving me behind,” he says, by Sherlock’s side now. Sherlock puts the tea into the cups instead of looking at him. 

“This isn’t about you,” he says. “Are you going in for a fight?” 

“Fuck off!” 

The words out of John’s mouth are so unexpected that Sherlock momentarily forgets himself, and turns his head to gape at him. John meets his eyes; his are tense, and his lips are pursed the way they are when he’s upset. There’s something else there, though; it’s not just anger. It’s care, too.

“This is about you,” John continues. “You could get hurt.”

“I _can_ take care of myself, John,” Sherlock says. He’s aware of how exasperated he sounds. John must hear it, too, because he purses his lips again. Sherlock turns back to the cups to avoid looking at it.

“No, you can’t.”

The words feel like a punch to Sherlock’s abdomen. His scars, metaphorical and not, are still raw, and allowing John in, allowing John to help, has been the hardest, most vulnerable thing he’s ever done. The idea that John thinks him weak for it aches in his chest.

“Just because I’m now vulnerable and honest with you,” he says, “doesn’t mean I’m incapable of–“

“Not like that, you bloody cock,” John interrupts him. Despite his tone, Sherlock feels a little relieved. “All right? Jesus Christ. I mean you can’t protect yourself if someone tries to knife or hit or shoot you.”

“I’m fine,” Sherlock says. It’s a last resort, mostly; he doesn’t know what to say. 

“Dear God above,” John says, in that barely contained voice of his, “I am just trying to keep you alive!” His voice is loud over the boiling kettle, but mid-sentence it cuts off, and Sherlock has the last three words bellowed at him. 

He registers the worry in them, just like he’s able to register John’s aggravation. Registers, too, that John didn’t say, ‘Then why do I take care of you all the time?’ to Sherlock’s remark. That he probably never would, that he probably isn’t lying when he does say, ‘Not like that.’

“I’m fine,” he says again, but the air has gone out of it, now. John’s body grows less taut next to his, as the words come out. “I _have_ killed people before.”

“Barely,” John says. His voice, however, is quiet now too. The agitation leaves it, and it becomes mild instead. 

Sherlock doesn’t reply. He fills the cups with the boiling water instead; busies his hands with it so he has something to do. He pushes one of the cups across the counter towards John, and leaves it there. 

John exhales. Sherlock feels it more than sees it, when John turns to watch his face. He keeps his own expression neutral.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” John says. His tone makes it clear where he’s gone back to. 

“Yeah, all right,” Sherlock says. He doesn’t look at John yet.

“Do you believe me?” 

Sherlock doesn’t really have to consider it; he already has. Besides, he’s collected enough data outside of this situation to recognise the truth of John’s words. 

“Yes,” he says. Curt, but true. John exhales again, and his body slackens against the counter. Sherlock thinks he’s relieved. 

He turns his head then, and allows John’s eyes to meet his. John’s become painted with a small smile; it’s hesitant at first, as if testing the mood. ‘I’m sorry,’ it says. ‘I still feel affection for you.’ Sherlock can’t help but to send a smile back.

He watches as John raises his hand and places it against Sherlock’s forehead, so his thumb is pressing firmly to the spot between Sherlock’s eyebrows. Sherlock closes his eyes under it.

“God, you’re tense,” John murmurs. 

His thumb moves a bit, so it becomes like a massage. Sherlock discovers his own tautness only when John touches it out of him, and makes the skin beneath his thumb go slack. He breathes out, then in.

“That’s it,” John says. He sounds fonder, now. Sherlock smiles, a little, and the rest of his stiffness subsides. 

“I don’t want to fight,” he says. It doesn’t matter if he sounds defeated, because John won’t pity him.

“No,” John says. “Me neither.”

“Mm.” Sherlock doesn’t have much else to say, in the midst of his exhaustion. John’s palms cup his cheeks, and he leans forward until his forehead hits John’s, and their breaths can mingle.

“You can’t go to bed before I’ve disinfected your wound,” John says. So he’s seen, despite the fact that the bandages are hidden beneath the fabric of Sherlock’s shirt. Sherlock isn’t surprised; John is observant, especially when it comes to him.

“I’d like a shower,” he says. John nods against him.

 

Getting naked before that shower isn’t about sex. It’s about Sherlock allowing John’s hands to push the fabric off him, push the everyday armour away, but leaving him the opposite of vulnerable underneath John’s skin. 

Sherlock is so tired that he sits underneath the spray of water at first, on the floor, and allows it to wash over him. His knees are bent in front of his chest. John’s hand is pressed to the right one, as he mirrors Sherlock’s position.

John’s lips come down to press against Sherlock’s knee. The soft hairs over it tickle under the touch. When John breathes in, heavily and with eyes clenched shut, Sherlock thinks he understands. He buries his fingers in John’s hair. 

“Teach me,” Sherlock says. 

John’s raises his head and his brows. His chin stays on Sherlock’s knee.

“What?” he asks. 

“Self-defence.” Sherlock knows a lot of it already, but John has rarely seen it. Maybe he will feel calmer if he does. 

John closes his eyes for a moment. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“I understand. The idea of losing you, it’s– you know.” He can’t quite articulate how terrible the idea of it is, and he doesn’t even want to try; he wants to think about that as little as possible.

John studies him for a moment, before he turns back to kiss the knee once more. 

“Yeah,” he says. Sherlock holds a palm to his cheek for a while.

“But I can’t promise you I’ll never do it again,” he says then. John looks at him, and his brows knit a little. “I don’t mean I’ll deliberately leave you behind, but in this specific circumstance people would have died if I hadn’t gone immediately. If I’d waited for you.”

John sighs and hides his head against Sherlock’s skin, rubbing his nose over it. It seems to mean he accepts, albeit reluctantly. 

“I know,” he says. 

“And a situation like that might arise again. I can’t let someone die. I just– I can’t.”

“No, I know,” John says. It’s muffled against Sherlock’s skin. “Fuck, I know.”

For a while neither of them say anything. After some time John looks back up and shifts, so he’s closer to Sherlock’s chest, and can rest his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder. It’s closeness. 

Sherlock hates that this is the condition; he hates anything that might cause John pain. It’s just that there isn’t much he can do about it, except maybe giving the cases up entirely. He’s certain John wouldn’t want him to do that. 

It’s cruel, he feels, that life should have these obstacles. He thinks, however, that they’ll overcome them.

“So, teach you?” John says eventually. They are only as much apart as is needed for them to see the other’s face. Sherlock tries a smile.

“Yes,” he says. 

“Teach you what?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Whatever you think would help,” he says. 

 

That night they fall asleep together like first-time lovers, all intertwined, so Sherlock can’t tell which limbs are his and which are John’s. It is as it should be.

Not long after John comes home one afternoon, and hands Sherlock a ticket: he’s booked them a training shooting course for the entirety of the following Saturday. 

They go, and when Sherlock, after several hours, hit target twenty times in a row, John kisses him with the smell of gunpowder in the air.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they go for a walk along the beach, John takes his hand, and says, “Do you think things would be different if I’d just told you what I was feeling back at the start?”

The wheels turn, and the leaves start falling until, one day, half a year has passed. Half a year, Sherlock thinks, of all sort of days: Fond days and bad days, days in bed and days out running after the worst and cleverest criminals of London. 

Days of winning, days of recovery. Days of losing too, like the time John nearly kills a man for holding a knife to the artery in Sherlock’s throat and has nightmares for a week. 

Mostly though, Sherlock thinks, they are happy days. They are days where he wakes up, and the bed besides him is still occupied by John’s naked, comfortable body, and Sherlock is no longer afraid to snuggle into it, asking for affection.

 

One afternoon John comes up to stand beside him, as he makes them two cups of tea, and says, “We should visit your parents this weekend.”

“All right,” Sherlock says. He revels in the feeling of John’s arms around his stomach, still, and places his own hands over John’s.

“Do you want to?” John’s lips press into his neck.

“Sure.”

And, so, they do.

 

They take the train down. It feels good, somehow, to be getting out of the city. He thinks of cottages and beehives, and grins when John presses fingers into the inside of his elbow. 

Being back at the house with John, like they haven’t been since that Christmas with Mary, feels somewhat like revisiting the past. But then John touches the space between his shoulder-blades, and his cheek, and his lower back, and Sherlock thinks it might feel a lot like progress, too. 

His mother hugs him, and his dad pats his back, and Sherlock sees a future stretching out in front of him.

When they go for a walk along the beach, John takes his hand, and says, “Do you think things would be different if I’d just told you what I was feeling back at the start?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock says. “I don’t know if I was ready, back then.”

They make it to the water’s edge, where the wooden pillars that become a landing during summer stick up, and Sherlock steps onto one of them. He uses John’s shoulder for balance, his palm pressed to it. 

The air tastes of saltwater, the wind blowing up the ocean next to them and mixing drops into it. If Sherlock were the air, then John would be the saltwater mixed into the body of him by the force of their love. Maybe he wasn’t ready then, but he is now: this is all he’ll ever want.

“Are you thinking about the past?” he asks. 

John’s shoulder moves under his hand with its shrug. He remains silent. Sherlock pulls him closer so he can rest his lower arms on John’s shoulders. Their faces are inches apart.

“I just hate all of the time we’ve lost,” John says. 

Sherlock pulls away from his face a bit. He looks over the water as he says, “This feels a lot like winning it, to me.” He doesn’t say ‘I never expected to live very long before you’, but it’s implied.

John purses his lips in thought. He steps closer still, so Sherlock is leaning entirely on him.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says. 

“I’m always right.” 

Sherlock says it to make John smile; it works. He looks up fondly.

“No, you’re not,” he says. He’s grinning. 

“Hm,” is all Sherlock says. “But you are.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“Maybe I am.” 

The words become a mumble when John kisses him and swallows the sound out of his mouth. He doesn’t mind. John works on him with the devotion of a thousand Trojan armies, and Sherlock is in love.

John pulls back, and their eyes meet. They look blue in this lighting; stormy and bright like the whipped-up ocean behind them. The grin, the fondness in them makes them deeper, universe-deep, extending so far back that Sherlock feels he could get lost in them.

“Close your eyes,” he says. 

John smiles. “No.” His hands come up to hold Sherlock’s shoulders; cupping his collarbones. “Why?”

“I want to tell you something.” 

John shakes his head a little, and turns his eyes to the sky. The effect is lost, however, with the beam that is parting his lips. These are the kinds of things that could swallow Sherlock up; he burns with them, with the affection.

“Tell me something,” John says. 

It’s Sherlock’s turn to shake his head. “Close your eyes.”

John rolls them first, again, but then he does. When Sherlock runs his thumbs over John’s closed eyelids, John smirks. Sherlock kisses the corner of his mouth shortly. 

“I love you,” he says. 

John’s smirk becomes a wide grin instead, under Sherlock’s lips. Sherlock’s own lips mirror it. He lets John’s hair fill up the space between his fingers, as he buries them in it. 

“You’re a silly man,” John says. 

For him, Sherlock thinks, he is. He hums in reply. John’s tongue press against the back of his front teeth, like it does sometimes when he is very joyously fond.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“Why?” Sherlock asks. It’s a joke, and John laughs. 

“I want to tell you something,” John says, beaming. Sherlock beams, too; he knows what’s coming.

“All right,” he says. John’s eyes open then, and Sherlock meets them. There are no walls between them. 

“Tell me something,” he says. He hears himself how his voice is low with his amusement. John chuckles, once, before he does. 

“I love you,” he says. He wiggles his eyebrows afterwards; playful, tender and filled with glee. 

Sherlock believes him.

__

That night in bed, after they’ve coaxed pleasure out of the both of them twice, Sherlock lies with his head on John’s chest and says, “Stay.”

John, who was almost asleep, stirs beneath him.

“I’m planning on it,” he says. 

“I mean with me.” 

He lifts his head so he can watch John grinning, like he knew he would. The affection burns in him, and swallows him up until ‘John’ is written all over his insides. It’s as he wants it.

“I’m still planning on it,” John says. Sherlock grins, too. 

“Good,” he says. 

He throws his leg over John’s body, so he’s astride John’s lap. John’s eyes open, and his hands come up to hold onto Sherlock’s sides; it’s comfortable. 

“Do you want the speech, or?” John says. 

“Do you have one?”

“Yeah.” 

Sherlock considers for a bit. As he does, John’s hands come up to run over his chest. Sherlock finds his nipples palmed, and rubs a little over John’s cock in revenge; John knows how sensitive he is there. 

John’s smile is smug as he licks his lips. Sherlock feels giddy with feeling wanted. 

“Save it,” he says, about the speech. “I think I might already know.”

“I think you do,” John agrees. Sherlock moves over him again, just so see him gasping and feel his grip tightening on Sherlock’s hips

“Hm,” he says. “It’s fine then. Your reply is satisfactory.”

John chuckles. “It’s all fine?” he says. It’s a throwback; it’s a reminder of how far they’ve come, and everything they have now. Sherlock chuckles, too.

“Yes,” he says. “That.”

“That?” John’s hands come up around his neck, and tugs him downwards, until their faces are inches apart. He doesn’t kiss Sherlock yet. When Sherlock tries to move in, he turns his head a little, so Sherlock can’t reach. 

“It’s all fine,” Sherlock confirms, because this is what John wants. John allows their lips to meet.

It’s all fine. It all will be. For the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so very much for reading! Tell me what you thought in the comments?
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [tenderlock](http://tenderlock.tumblr.com)


End file.
